Sunday, September 30, 2012

Kirito Cosplay: Part 1: Sword Template

Greetings Internet!

Well every year here in Canada, we have an anime convention or two. Maybe three tops. One of these convention is AnimeNorth! AnimeNorth was the first convention I had ever cosplayed in (Itachi as I the Akatsuki robe was easy to make, and I needed no wig or makeup), and throughout the years I have well sometimes manged to always cosplay at that event.

This year will be no different! As you can tell by the title I will be cosplaying as Kirito from Sword Art Online fame, I myself am a huge fan of the light novels, and I must admit have not been keeping up with the anime or manga. I will eventually watch them! I promise, it's just well.... I'm lazy!

Anyways the first step to this cosplay was to make the sword, as you can't be the Black Swordsman without a sword eh? To start I decided to go bug my older sister about how to make one (remember the title of the blog? By the end of the post you'll see why it's named that.). She told me that she had no idea, therefore I came up with the idea of buying a cheap badminton racket breaking the head off and using duct tape to make the blade, LARP style, genius eh?

She told me that I could do that, although it would look terrible afterwards...So I was lost for awhile, I had no idea how to make the sword...

Until my good friend, told me that she would also be cosplaying Kirito! I quickly asked her (now known as Cross) how she would be making her sword, her response? Another of our mutual friends that had quite skilled hands would be making the sword out a wood for her! I tracked down that handy friend (now known as Handy) and begged him to also make mine, he agreed but I would have to make my template myself. Well fine, make me actually do some work...

I first needed foam to draw on, Cross had some spare so she gave me the left overs from her sword template, "Sweet less work for me to do!" I thought to myself, "Now to get home and start drawing!" A week passed and no work had been done. I'm lazy leave me alone!

Well then today, I finally decided what the hell, let's do this! So after that long intro, here's my first day of work!

First a reference photo.

That's what we're aiming for guys!

So I got my foam, and instantly began to draw using my phone to Google reference photos. Not the smartest of ideas, not using a rough draft or anything, but I preserved, it wasn't till a few minutes later did I realize I had taken no photos for this blog, I quickly snapped a photo, so this is how it looked after a few minutes of work.

Hard to make out but you can see the handle and hilt being formed. A this point I went to the washroom... and then used my computer...and ate lunch, after lunch, I began work once more! Here's a photo of my amazing work table...floor.

Yes I did use that picture of a cat to draw the arches, and yes I do have a real sword next to my drawing to use as reference. Well I can tell you one thing about how I did, I really did prove to myself how inept I can be, because as I drew I didn't take any other photos until I was done...

So here's the finished project!

You can barely make make it out, but the arch is not larger, and I've drawn in the blade, doesn't the handle look long to you guys too? I think I'll have to ask Handy to make the blade longer, but otherwise I'm proud of myself! Now I know, it's not actually cut out... but I'll do that tomorrow. Until next time, seeya!